


ERROR 375

by lindamë (thelastdrumbeat)



Category: VIXX
Genre: Angst, I Made Myself Cry, i guess it's classed as f/m if you ship hongbin and his girlfriend, i'm warning you now, songfic....?, super sad, vixx error
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 13:19:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2469686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastdrumbeat/pseuds/lindam%C3%AB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>alex + the new error mv = this incredibly in-depth interpretation. enjoy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ERROR 375

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spiritedWinters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiritedWinters/gifts).



This moment had been a long time in coming. Hongbin walked along the bay, looking at each of the other cyborgs in their upright pods in turn. They returned his gaze with blank eyes, their cold blue so different from his deep brown. But then... he was different. He was.. whole. He could feel, think for himself, and he could act on his own free will while his brothers sat placidly in their pods, arms and legs missing. He had never even seen them blink, never seen artificial eyelid cover the blue that meant they were dormant. How could they be so far from a human, when Hongbin had as good as achieved it? Sometimes that thought ate at him while he sat alone in his white, empty room, plagued by his memories like a virus, creeping through his circuitry.  _Was this wrong? Was he the broken one?_  
  
That was not the thought he had in his mind when he met the eyes of the last  cyborg on the row. Cha Hakyeon's eyes seemed to accuse him-  _creation is not what we are meant for. Look what you've done to us, in the name of your perverse cause._ Somewhere, Hongbin knew he was right. He had taken from his brothers that which he had no right to take. At first he'd taken from the silver prototypes, nameless, half-built things that didn't respond even when he lifted them gently out of their cryotanks. When they yielded no results, he'd taken from their attendants- a pair of unassuming men who'd made considerably more noise, until he'd disabled their voice function. But with never any access to the outside world, how was he expected to come by a steady supply of materials? That was the thought that he had in mind when he looked back at his brother with a steady, determined gaze. If he'd thought the other cyborg would have understood, he would have said,  
  
"I won't regret what I've done."  
  
And everything he had wanted to say as well would have been wrapped up in that short phrase. Hakyeon would have heard the undercurrent of  _fear_ and  _worry_ and  _doubt_ in his vocal register but---   
It seemed he'd been alone for so long that even that had dulled. He didn't need his comfort anyway.   
  
Perhaps contact was what made one human? And if not that... then.... what about memories?  
  
Of course, he'd erased all his memories of his brothers before he started work. It was easier to take them apart that way- but sometimes he wished he hadn't been sentimental and left their heads intact. Now he could feel their cold eyes judging him, every moment of every day, even when he broke down and cried for them to stop, begging for their forgiveness, forgetting that he'd removed what he could of their consciousness chips as well, right at the very beginning.   
  
Memories of her - the girl, the one with no name,  _his project_ and  _oh god_  and  _whatwashedoingwhat_ \- they haunted him. They consumed him. The only one he had ever loved, who had loved him back with all her human, human heart. She had been all he had ever wanted, all he he ever wanted to be... of course, he'd forgotten that humans could get ill. Could wither and fade into invaliditity. Could die. How he cursed himself for his error then, in becoming too human, when his robotic heart had broken the moment her frail hand slipped out of his and her life left her body. And along with his broken heart had come a vow- he would fill her body with life again. No matter what.  
  
 **No matter what.**  
  
Of course, it had taken a while for him to get a grasp of female anatomy as he built her new body. At first he had built from memory, making a framework from wires, latticed together. It hadn't taken long before it was clear that wouldn't work. Her features were too masculine, her shoulders too wide, her chin too broad. He forgave himself his mistake- after all, he only had male models to work from. So when the Inspectors had come round he'd hidden his crude model inside an air vent, unwilling to give up.  He'd put up with all the scans and hydraulics checks and the poking, prodding, prying... and when they'd finished he'd stepped back into his pod, the pod that he'd hardly used since she died, and let them believe that everything was in order while he nursed his spark of corrupt inspiration. He let them believe that they were all of them placid and obedient, and stayed in their pods in the month-long gaps between their visits. That they stayed in storage.  
  
After they were gone, he'd overridden the command and gone to work again.  Hongbin didn't allow himself to think of what the consequences might be when they came back next month to find all but one of their precious cyborgs ruined.  
  
At first, he'd looked into each of his brother's eyes as he removed what he could reach of their consciousness chips. Taekwoon and Wonshik had both met his gaze, fury and an odd sort of understanding in their eyes, but he found his nerve broke when he got to Sanghyuk. The youngest. His best friend. His charge, in a way. His gaze slipped away as the tips of his tweezers touched warm metal. After that hitch, he found himself able to continue his little ritual. He said to each of them as their eyes faded from live brown to dormant blue-  
  
"It's for a good reason, hyung."  
   
He found apologies burned his tongue before he could say them, and wondered if that meant an apology would be a lie, or maybe that it was so true that it would rust as soon as it came in contact with oxygen.   
  
After, he'd braced himself on the wall and, impossibly, retched, legs shaking, tears gathering in his eyes. It took several minutes of telling himself it was just something wrong with his system before he straightened up, carefully disabling that function.  _Pull yourself together, Hongbin, you've got work to do. Fulfill your promise. _  
  
And he had. Yes, this moment had been long in coming, but it was worth it, worth everything. His family made up  _her,_ and it made a perfect sort of sense. Who he loved, making up.... who he loved. Yes, this was a good reason for what he'd done.  
  
Good reason or not, he still felt a little thrill of foreboding as he watched the display creep it's way up to RENDER: 100%. What if she didn't recognise him? What if he'd done something wrong? Worst of all ... what if she didn't want this? He clenched his hands as he looked up at her, peaceful in his pod. The console beeped it's progress gently behind him. Time seemed to stand still as he stood anxiously by, his breath hitching in his chest.  
  
 _'Render complete,'_ chimed the console in his head. And then,  _'Error: 375.'_ A cutaway of her arm flashed momentarily in the corner of his vision, highlighting the problem.  
  
Then Hongbin felt his heart stop when she opened her eyes, eyes that so briefly flashed blue before settling down into safe, safe brown. Brown like his eyes, like Jaehwan and Sanghyuk's had been before he'd made them blue forever. He put a hand on her perfect cheek, trying to ignore the pinch of disappointment he felt when all the response he got was a slow blink. No matter- he had a solution. The memory machine. Sanghyuk's last words.  _"Just use the memory machine, okay, oppa?"_  
  
"Come on," He said, taking her hand.  _The first words he'd said since he'd broken all his brothers._ "This way."  
  
She followed. Wordless. Like a doll. She sat like a doll too, arms at her sides, facing only forwards, back perfectly straight as Hongbin fixed her hand. It pained him when he had to twist the limb to an unnatural degree to take it off and fix the broken circuit in the forearm, but she didn't even seem to notice it. Like Hongbin was feeling the pain for her.  She didn't even cough or blink when a gust of smoke wafted into her face as he stood to reattach it. He felt like his heart might beat right out of his chest, desperation mingling with desperate care for her.  _What if something had gone wrong? What if something was going wrong right now, and her poker face just didn't let on? How could he possibly know?_ Her rigid posture stayed even when he placed the bulk of the memory machine on her head. He knew it was heavy, from experience, and the fact that her head didn't even dip under the weight just made his uneasiness worse. But, if he wanted her back... all he could do now was hope that it would work. Hope, wait, and watch. He thought:  _He loved her. It would work, because he loved her._  And then he thought:  _How human. **We've swapped places.**_  
  
He kept his eyes locked on where hers must surely be, though he wasn't sure why. (Maybe to allay his worry. Yes- maybe that was it. Contact again.) He imagined what she was seeing inside the bulky apparatus, imagined that it was him listening to the comforting hum of hydraulics, imagined it was him, watching his own memories play out on the display.  Hongbin remembered his previous thought- that contact and memory made someone human. So much rested on that theory. If she could be human, she could love him again, love him like he loved her. What did he do with his hands while he waited, watching her move her head back and forth in tiny unsure movements, like she was reading something she didn't quite understand?  
  
It seemed like years later when the console beeped again-  _a heartbeat, how fitting_ -and then it chimed,  _'Insert complete.'_  
  
He had never been so glad to hear that console talking through the interface to him before. With his heart in his mouth, he lifted the device off her head. For a fleet moment, she kept her eyes closed, processing. It couldn't be possible that she was rejecting the memories,  Hongbin knew, or the console would have reported it. So.... what? He bent down, meaning to try and reassure her. And then, like the gift of all gifts, she opened her eyes and put her arms around his neck in one swift action. Sweet relief flooded through him.  _It worked. It worked. It's her._ She was so solid. He curled his fingers into her top, reveling in the feel of a live being under the cloth and not just the empty doll she had been. Finally alive, beside him. He could have cried.  
  
They sat down together on the diagnostics table and twined their fingers together, mostly so that Hongbin could convince himself he wasn't dreaming. She grinned, innocent and childish. (Exactly as he had been, before he had dismantled his siblings for the sake of a girl. Even when she'd died, the last look he saw in her eyes was  _Hongbin , don't be sad.) _They rested there together for so many hours he lost count, with their fingers tangled up like cables in Hongbin's lap. They sat even though he felt like he could just jump all around the room, and he would have done if he hadn't thought she'd try to join in. No, he couldn't have her ruining her knee joints. He smiled at the image of her hair swishing as she leaped, and leaned against her shoulder, smiling when she tipped her head onto his. He twirled a strand of her hair around his finger, meaning to show her how pretty it looked when it caught the light in a certain way. Peaceful.  
  
That's when he saw the Inspectors.  
  
They had come in like smoke, silent, 3 of them.   
  
The first thought he had was  _how unfair.  
  
_ And then he was sweeping her behind him as he stood, terror pushing every thought out of his head besides  ** _protectprotectprotect._** He shook his head at them, pleading, wordless as he'd ever been in the face of what he feared most. An Inspectos roughly grabbed his arms, dragging him away, and, with vicious precision, dug his fingers into the pressure point on the inside of his elbow. Doubtless he knew it would paralyze his legs. There was so much noise in the little room, scuffling and shouting, pressing on his ears, making the walls seem nearer than they realy were. It made him sick that he eventually stilled in a twisted attempt to set an example. And he thought his heart might break into hundreds of tiny shards when she copied, and the Inspector behind her brought down a long, long diagnostics needle.   
  
If he hadn't thought it would have scared her more than she already was, he would have broken down in desperate tears. He watched her freeze, eyes flickering in and out of hibernation, arms still slightly raised, as the program rifled through her databases. Invasive. Sickening. How could they bear to violate such a childlike being?  _How had they even found out?_  She'd been alive for only a little more than a day. The results would be that she was illegal, he knew that already. She would be punished as much as him in the end, he knew that too, punished for what he'd done. If they even let her live. She would just be thrown away like a toy that wasn't good enough, incinerated or dismantled for spare parts, or simply switched off. The most undignified of endings. And he had brought this on her through his selfishness. Humanity had crept into his system, corrupting everything, making the unthinkable seem like it was a good idea.  
 _ **  
**_He could imagine his brothers, trapped in their useless bodies, looking accusingly at him as if to say,  
  
 _"Look what you've done."  
  
_ Hakyeon especially. He always spoke the most painful truths, whether they'd rust or not, and the Hakyeon in his head now was no different.  
  
 _"How selfish can you be? Didn't I tell you? Didn't I try to warn you? Now look what's happened."_  
  
He choked out an apology that was more like a prayer, though it was far too late now. The world was already ending.  
  
Their device beeped twice, and a haze of red descended down his vision, like code in the background of his dreams. Time to do something, do something now, because two beeps meant an error, not a heartbeat, it meant heartbreak, how could he have been so stupid---  
  
And he found himself running down a hallway, towing her by the hand. The vague memory of very recently pushing against soft-coated metal, flexing his muscles, using his hands to be violent towards another being, surfaced to the forefreont of his mind. He deleted it.  
   
"It's okay, it's okay," he managed to gasp out between footfalls. Even though everything was so far from okay. There was no way out. His stupid actions had condemned them both to the incinerator.  
  
He slowed, and then came to a stop. They'd run in a circle, down corridors, heedless of where they were going, and yet.. In front of them was the table that he had used to dismantle the silent silver prototypes, the two unfortunate assistants. His brothers. It was bathed in white light, like some far away sympathetic deity had turned it's gaze on them and said,  _here, I will give you a solution._ There was a vast silence. She met his eyes. Understanding was in them, like there had been in Taekwoon's and Wonshik's, blatant in her comforting brown eyes. Not a hint of blue was in them. She was still sentient and aware. But the Inspectors would no doubt try and take that away from her.  
  
He wanted to apologise, to alleviate his terrible regret, but instead he took her hand, tangling their fingers together again. They turned and walked together towards the table. They would not rush towards death, or cry and beg to those who would dispatch them heartlessly. This was a more dignified way to go. He resigned himself to death, as they walked. He had created an illusion for himself, selfishly, thoughtlessly. His brothers were ruined, trapped in their useless bodies now, all because of him, and it was right that he should pay the price. He just regretted that he'd had to drag another innocent being into this mess he'd made. Casualties. Because of his error.   
  
He'd wanted to say to Hakyeon, right at the very start when he was so wrapped up in his own plans, that he wouldn't regret what he'd done, and he wondered what the other cyborg would say if he told him that he very much regretted it now.   
  
Even though he still loved her.  
  
That was the thought he had in his mind when they lay down on the table, face to face. Their knees touched.  _Contact again. Were they both human now?_ The dismantling machine hummed to life above them. It lowered a single arm, equipped with everything it would need to kill them. He loved her, impossibly, and now he was killing her. A thousand apologies brimmed on his tongue, but he couldn't say them. They'd just rust. He blinked instead, slowly, as she had at the very beginning, while the machine carved a hole in his cheek, symettrical to the one on hers. At least she wouldn't feel any pain - he'd seen to that. Almost as if he'd known this was coming. As if, when he put his hand on her cheek when she was newly rendered, the look in his eye hadn't only been love, it had been foreboding too.  
  
Lazers and hand-shaped dismantlers were everywhere now. They almost obscured his view of her as they busily whirred about. Killing them. Still, he couldn't say anything. What was it that made him mute?   
  
A tear slid down his the bridge of his nose. If only saltwater, inexplicable saltwater, could convey what he couldn't say.  
  
 _I'm sorry. I love you. I love you. I'm so sorry._  
  
He thought of his brothers. The world was ending. He'd never be able to put them back together again, restore them to themselves. Perhaps the Inspectors would do it. They'd probably erase their memories of him though, not wanting them to ask any unfortunate questions about the missing member of their family. How he wished he'd restored his own memories while he still had access to the machine. He found himself wishing for something else as well, so badly he could taste it. What was it? Forgiveness? Escape? Did he wish that none of this had happened?   
  
His whole world zoned in to her face.  _Was it still a good reason?_  
  
"Saranghae," spoken softly, nearly drowned out by the steadily approaching hum of the lazer.  
  
The universe was holding it's breath.   
  
  
  
Static.

**Author's Note:**

> holy shit, i'm sorry that this is so heavy and depressing. but i hoped you liked it!


End file.
